Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

This is something that DFID has particularly focused on. We have given funding directly to UNICEF to support educational facilities—when I was in the Zaatari camp in Jordan, I saw school facilities that had recently been built—and to support counselling. I would like to look more carefully with the United Nations agencies at what we can do to provide trauma counselling for children and their parents, because many of them have gone through awful experiences before ending up in the refugee camps.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

When King Abdullah of Jordan was in London recently, he told us that there was a massive problem with crime, violent assault, rape, prostitution and trafficking involving women who had been displaced by the violence in Syria. What action are we taking to ensure that those women and girls can be protected, because currently they are not?

[Justine Greening]

We do our best work with the UN agencies, which are co-ordinating much of the relief to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that about 75% of the refugees leaving Syria are women and children, so this is incredibly important. Alongside that work, we clearly need to work in the host communities in places like Jordan to ensure that they are able to cope with this huge influx of people who are placing added pressure on their services, which can often cause tension leading to the kind of trouble that he has mentioned.

Pakistan

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I think it is fair to say that the International Development Committee was a little bit more controversial in some of our comments and recommendations on Pakistan than we were on post-2015 development goals. The Committee wants to make it clear that we have absolutely no hesitation in asserting the fact that the relationship between Britain and Pakistan is fundamental and indissoluble. It is absolutely essential to both countries as a force of history and a current reality. We have more than 1 million people of Pakistani origin living in the United Kingdom, and we have a shared interest in ensuring that Pakistan is a successful country that manages to overcome the challenges that it faces. Secondly, we want to make it clear that, more than anything else, we believe that the United Kingdom should stand with the poorest people of Pakistan and that our objective is to engage in helping them to achieve a better quality of life. That might mean that we will be a candid friend of Pakistan rather than a sycophantic one.

The population of Pakistan is projected to rise from 180 million to 205 million by 2020, and the simple challenge that the country faces is that population growth is faster than economic growth. One does not have to be a top mathematician to calculate that as the population rises, unless something fundamental changes, the numbers of people in poverty will increase. That is one of the more depressing analyses for our development and aid programme across our bilateral partners.

In that context, the Government have a perfectly understandable ambition to raise the aid programme—the bilateral funding to Pakistan—from £267 million to £446 million by the end of this Parliament. We completely understand that, but we have some grave reservations about doing it if nothing changes, and that was an essential aspect of our report.

Obviously, we looked at the areas in which the Department for International Development was engaged, which were predominantly health, education and governance. In all cases, they were the right areas on which to be focused. Will the Minister update us on some of the specific points regarding those areas about which we raised concerns?

There is a big programme of commitment to improve maternal help, which we support, and it is absolutely essential that that is delivered. Two health support mechanisms are in place. One, the lady health workers, is longer established, while the other, to which DFID has given substantial support, is community midwives. A practical thing we discovered was that where those mechanisms should be complementary and working together, they were operating dysfunctionally as two separate institutions. One reason for that was how people were paid. As we understand it, lady health workers get a flat salary to provide help on maternal health, child health and general health issues, which is what our own community nurses do. Community midwives, on the other hand, are specifically there to support women through childbirth. They are paid a much smaller flat rate plus so much per delivery, so that has created two classes of health workers in the same area.

We actually saw a particularly good example of co-operation between a lady health worker and a community midwife, but that had more to do with the fact that they were sisters-in-law than that the system itself was working fundamentally as we would like. I do not know whether the Minister can give us any information about whether that situation has been addressed and improved. I want to make it clear that they are both good basic concepts, but how they were functioning was not serving the interests of the people as well as might have been the case.

Obviously, the biggest part of the Government’s programme is support for education, especially, but not exclusively, in Punjab. It is worth reporting that when we were meeting the then Prime Minister, he spontaneously raised the issue of Malala, who was sadly shot and is now living in this country, before any member of the Committee raised it with him. That incident was an indication to us, and a wake-up call among people in Pakistan, that there really had to be clarity about the right of girls to have an education and the Government’s full-square backing for that principle. None the less, it was satisfying to hear that statement from the Prime Minister, but it does not remove the fact that the challenges are very real. As we know, Malala’s colleague who was shot at the same time has now come to the UK because she says that her ability to pursue her education in Pakistan has been totally compromised.

The scheme in Punjab that we looked at, which has been developed by Michael Barber, is doing extremely good work and is working closely with the Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of the new Prime Minister. The good news is that he is staying in post, because there was some concern that if he moved, that might compromise the relationship. Good relationships that deliver good results are clearly totally satisfactory. The problem is that if the relationship breaks down, there is not the infrastructure to fall back on, so one hopes that that good relationship will continue.

A number of things have been said to us about that programme suggesting some aspects are good, but some questionable. The fundamental objective is to ensure that teachers are appointed on merit, that they turn up and teach, and that their pupils also have an attendance record. Michael Barber has acknowledged that that is the sum total of what has been achieved at this stage, which means that the quality of the education still has a way to go. At one particular school we visited, we were shown a demonstration lesson. When we sat down at the back of the class and flicked through the exercise book, we found that the pages before and after that particular lesson were blank. The lesson had been a show piece; the fundamentals were not there. Clearly, that is a real concern.

Indeed, we have had a follow-up visit from one of our witnesses, Dr Matthew Nelson of the school of oriental and African studies, and he raised further points of concern. He does not deny that appointing teachers on merit is the right objective or that the Chief Minister and his officials entirely buy into it, but he says that there is plenty of evidence that merit is available to be bought, and is being bought on a large scale. He says that it is a good idea to appoint people on merit rather than because they have a political connection, and that is absolutely right. The point he makes, however, is that exam marks, which are the test of merit, are subject to endemic corruption; effectively, people can buy exam results and present themselves as having merit when they have absolutely no capacity to be a competent teacher. I will not read them out, but Dr Nelson gives examples of how the process works.

That is obviously a concern, but we recognise that the approach taken by Michael Barber and the commitment of the Chief Minister are real and are having results, although the two of them are probably facing more challenges than they would like. If the Minister can address those challenges now, that would be good; if not, perhaps he can write to us saying what proposals are being taken forward. We should certainly not abandon the programme, but we must make sure that it works effectively and delivers the right results.

The Committee’s concern was not so much that DFID was not tackling the right issues or not approaching things in the right way—I have indicated some of the challenges that need to be overcome—but that an awful lot of development assistance has not achieved substantial results. One slightly disturbing thing we were told was that the education programme being pursued by DFID was quite similar to one pursued by the United States Agency for International Development some years ago. When that programme finished, the benefits fell away completely, and we obviously hope that DFID will find a way of ensuring that that does not happen again.

In our report, the Committee says:

“In the past, donor money has not been spent effectively in Pakistan for a variety of reasons. Corruption is rife in a social order based on patronage and kinship networks. Pakistan’s rich do not pay taxes and exhibit little interest in improving conditions and opportunities for Pakistan’s poor.”

That was the most striking and controversial element of our report, but I certainly stand by it, as I think all members of the Committee do. However, we compiled and published our report during the election in Pakistan—the previous Government had demitted office, and a caretaker Government were in place—and a new Government have now come into office. We therefore hope that they will take these issues as both a challenge and an opportunity to show they mean to take action.

Taxes are not just a matter of morality and justice—I will come back to that—but essential to Pakistan’s survival. If Pakistan cannot raise its tax base from below 10%, it will not be able to support its people by providing the basic services they not only have the right to expect, but absolutely need. No aid programme from outside can make up that shortfall; if Pakistan does not find the resources from within its own, admittedly weak, economy, it will not be able to sustain services—certainly not with the population growth it faces.

The British Government, aid partners and the IMF must look Pakistan’s rulers in the eye and ask them bluntly and frankly why they do not pay taxes in their own country and when they will start doing so. It is completely intolerable that British taxpayers should be funding health and education in Pakistan when the richest people there contribute absolutely nothing towards those services and do not use them, because they buy private education and private health. That is not only a moral issue, but a fundamental issue of financial survival for Pakistan.

This is the first time in the country’s history that a Government have completed their term and a new democratic Government have been elected to step up and accept their responsibilities. Therefore, unless there is clear evidence of a commitment on the part of Pakistan’s leadership to contribute to their own development agenda, the British Government should not nearly double our aid—there is no suggestion that we should cut it—and make Pakistan the biggest single recipient.

I have seen a series of e-mails. In the past few weeks, the IMF has been engaged in Pakistan. The country is looking for further funding, despite the fact that there is a substantial amount—$10 billion or $12 billion—of surplus deposits in Pakistani banks, which is about equivalent to the loan Pakistan is looking for from the IMF. In other words, there is some sovereign resource available in Pakistan. Again, we are not suggesting that the IMF should not engage, but it should make it absolutely clear that increasing the tax contribution is part and parcel of the package of agreements. I understand that IMF officials have maintained a fairly resolute stance, but I am slightly concerned to hear that the Pakistani Government’s response has been to journey to Saudi Arabia to see whether they can get funding from that source so that they do not have to meet the IMF’s conditions.

That is a sensitive issue, but it must be confronted. It is made somewhat more difficult by what was, on the face of it, not a bad change in the Pakistani Government’s approach to government. The 18th amendment to the constitution devolved the delivery of services to the four provincial governments. I am a believer in devolution, and it is probably better to have local government delivering more services, because it is accountable to the distinctive provinces of Pakistan. However, if the money is not raised at either level, devolution is an abdication of responsibility; it is basically giving the provinces responsibility without the means to deliver services. If a formula is not developed to ensure that the money flows, one can imagine what the consequences are likely to be.

There is a significant number of members of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK, so we thought it was important to engage with them. I completely recognise that their perspective of the country they or their parents came from tends to be slightly different from that of the people who live there. However, they also have a clear interest, and many make regular visits and have many connections and family ties. The people we met were outspoken in saying that they could play a much more useful role in ensuring that aid and development spending reached the people it was meant to. Most of them will work with only a limited number of partners they feel they can trust. If anything, members of the diaspora are more outspoken critics of Pakistan than donors or others because, as they say, they see what is happening.

The essence of all this is that Pakistan’s stability is crucial to Pakistan, to the region and to Britain’s substantial interests there. At a time when we are gradually disengaging from Afghanistan militarily, although not in terms of development assistance, we do not need Pakistan to become a bigger problem than Afghanistan. We need to hold on to our shared interest.

Pakistan must face the reality that unless something changes, India’s GDP per capita is likely to move way ahead its own, and even Afghanistan might move into a better position. We must therefore maintain our engagement—that is not negotiable. The Committee approves fundamentally of the priorities that the British Government have set, but Ministers must try harder to ensure that they get the outcomes they want on health and education. They should be robust in ensuring that our further commitment and increased engagement is matched by an increase in the tax base.

In a sense, we are giving the elite of Pakistan a moral eyeballing and telling them to demonstrate their willingness to participate in the process. The outgoing Parliament voted by an overwhelming majority that it did not believe its Members should pay taxes. I wonder what the British public would think if we passed such a motion here. It is done with a completely innocent face, but the people in question are much richer than any of us—or certainly than most of us—and they stand as political leaders, seeking to lead their country presumably to a better place. I cannot think of any politicians who stand in democratic elections and do not offer at least a vision and prospects. However, for that to happen, they must play their part and be partners with the people—particularly the poor people—of Pakistan.

I want to make one qualification to what I have said, which I think that the Minister will understand. The small number of people in Pakistan who do pay their taxes should not be screwed with an increase so that the people at the other end of the scale need not pay. Nothing should be done, either, to increase the burden on the poorest of the poor. The target is clearly the wealthy elite, who have a contribution to make and must make it.

I do not apologise for dwelling on those issues, because they represent a watershed in our relationship with Pakistan. I want the country to succeed and its people to have the prospects that they want for themselves. I am happy to have met many Pakistanis here and in Pakistan who share that vision, but also share the frustration that for decades they have been stuck in a situation in which their world does not improve, and in which, because of corruption and a lack of commitment and financial base, they do not get the growth, poverty reduction and development that they need and deserve. I am thrilled that the British Government understand the commitment, but I hope that they will agree with the Committee that to get results we need a robust relationship.

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[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank the Minister for a succinct and positive response to the debate, which shed a clear light on the Government’s determination to take the opportunity to turn things around. It is important that the new, democratically elected Government—the first to secure the transition—have the responsibility and an opportunity to make the changes. My only caution is that, while I welcome their commitment to increase the tax take to 15%, such commitments have been made in the past and not delivered. We clearly need positive measures for that to happen.

I completely agree with the Minister that the most effective way to achieve things is through donor co-ordination, because all the donors working together and singing from the same hymn sheet is more likely to get a co-ordinated response. I welcome what he said about bringing together lady health workers and community midwives, which seems to be something that could be done, so it is great to hear that it is being done. We can do it ourselves as well, but I hope that the Minister will convey to Sir Michael Barber that he is doing an excellent job of work, although there are some concerns about merit meaning what it says—perhaps something could be done about that.

Overall, we want to share with the people of Pakistan an absolutely joint commitment saying that they deserve a future that is a lot better than the recent past. We have to ensure that the aid community can find the partners—partners in Pakistan—to achieve that. As the Minister rightly says, without a functioning partner outside agencies ultimately cannot deliver. The reason why we put the caveat that we did in the report is that, willing as we may be to support the poor people of Pakistan, the effort will only work if their leaders want it to work and are prepared to work with us. I am, however, encouraged by what the Minister has had to say. I hope that the next few months in particular will see some positive progress in that direction.

Question put and agreed to.

Post-2015 Development Goals

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

As you know, Mr Havard, we are having two debates this afternoon: this one, and then one on the Department for International Development’s engagement in Pakistan. They will be approximately equal in length, depending on hon. Members’ contributions.

The Select Committee on International Development took the view that it was important that we engage in the process of the post-2015 development goals, and we took evidence from a fairly wide variety of sources. We reflected first on the achievement of the millennium development goals for 2015, and thereafter on what we needed to take forward. When the MDGs were set up in 2001, they were rather slow in gathering momentum. Some people suggested that they were hatched in a basement of the United Nations, which is probably slightly unfair, but they certainly were not the product of wide consultation. Nevertheless, over time, the MDGs became a definite focus of development policy for the UK and many others. It is interesting that in its annual report, for example, our own DFID would put against the country programmes a series of traffic lights indicating how well a country was doing in relation to those goals. In time, a lot of developing countries took ownership of their responsibility for securing development goals.

However, we must also reflect that the goals were somewhat mixed in their intentions and expression, and slightly different in substance. Although they were helpful in driving the agenda, we clearly were not going to hit them, and many countries—particularly the weakest ones; the ones that the UK is most engaged in—are off course for achieving them. It would be unacceptable to arrive at 2015 and say, “Well, that was an interesting exercise. Here are the overall performance indicators of who got how far towards them,” and have that be the end of it. We recognised that we had to ensure that the job was not left unfinished and that we moved forward. The UN then appointed a high-level panel with our own Prime Minister as a co-chair, which reported a few weeks ago.

The first thing that we were concerned to address, whatever the new process did, was much wider ownership of it through thorough consultation and engagement. I think that we can honestly say that the process has been much more inclusive than the original one. However, we also wanted it to address some of the shortcomings of the original goals, such as the fact that a goal of halving absolute poverty by 2015 could leave the other half of people in absolute poverty. Also, if absolute poverty is $2 a day, it is much easier to raise somebody to that level from $1.90 than from $1, so there is a tendency to concentrate on lifting those people just below the margin. Ironically, that means that the poorest of the poor could be left further behind. That did not always happen, but it could be the consequence, and we were anxious to ensure that such unintended consequences were not incorporated into the next round of goals.

It is also important to recall that there are huge inequalities. The question of how well we have done globally on achieving various MDGs can disguise the fact that some countries are nowhere near, whereas countries such as China and India have made the biggest progress and account for the highest proportion of the success. Even within countries, it may be possible to show that targets have been broadly met, yet some communities may have fallen completely behind. Again, we were anxious to ensure that things were much more inclusive in the future and that the disparities within communities were addressed. We also thought that, ultimately, having a livelihood—perhaps a job, but some means of earning a living—is the best way out of poverty, and that that needed to be incorporated into the goals.

In that context, we were pleased that the high-level panel was appointed, and we were extremely pleased that our Prime Minister was given such a prominent role within it. That was testimony to the UK Government’s commitment to development; we will deliver 0.7% of gross national income this year, unlike many countries. The quality and focus of what we do is also highly respected. It is essential that we acknowledge that that has been achieved through strong cross-party support, and this is an achievement of which our country can be justifiably proud.

I make a side comment on the justification for that decision for those who choose to criticise it. Any of us who engage in countries where poverty is severe and endemic understand completely that however difficult our problems in the United Kingdom, they in no way compare with the absolute poverty that exists in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. We should be absolutely clear that as long as we have the capacity to work in partnership to help to lift those people out of absolute poverty, we should be unashamed in our commitment to doing so.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Is it not true that if we can help countries to lift themselves out of poverty, particularly through developing businesses that will pay tax as part of the formal sector, we can also benefit from trade opportunities, particularly in countries such as those in Africa?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In countries that have lifted themselves out of absolute poverty, whatever role aid has played—one likes to think that delivering health and education infrastructure contributes to that—ultimately it was their own economic uplift, taking people with it, that turned those countries around, although that has not solved all their problems. China still has 200 million people living in absolute poverty, while India has 400 million, but they have lifted huge numbers of people out of poverty, which is a fantastic achievement that has more to do with the dynamics of those countries’ economies than with aid, although I contend that aid certainly helped them achieve that, particularly when it was targeted and focused.

Good and valuable as the 2015 MDGs have been, they left many people behind, and in many cases, they did not deliver a clear and identifiable qualitative benefit. For example, the process of enrolling children in primary education says nothing about whether they actually learn anything, and we often found that enrolment did not lead to completion. Even when it did, the quality of the education was so poor in some cases that it was questionable whether much benefit was achieved. Nevertheless, having that driver meant that something was done that would not otherwise have happened. There was variation, because in some cases the quality of education did make a material difference and the children stuck at it.

We were anxious to contribute to the debate about what we should do next. We wanted to say first that we could not arrive at 2015 without moving forward to what happens next, and that the process had to be conducted in such a way that there was ownership around the globe right from the outset. Goals had to be drawn up together, not imposed from above.

Since we published our report, the high-level panel has reported, and I hope that it is appropriate for me to comment on the panel’s report because I hope that it reflects our contribution a little. It is a long report that includes a lot of information, but two specific aspects are the five “transformative shifts” and the 12 proposed goals, which have sub-goals attached. To be absolutely clear, the high-level panel has not sought to finish the job. Its objective was to set the framework and push out ideas about what the principles should be, and the second part of the process will turn that into clear, quantifiable, realistic goals that can take us forward for the next 15 years.

I welcome the five shifts, the first of which is to leave no one behind, which addresses one of the fundamental failings of the 2015 MDGs. The second shift—putting sustainable development at the core of things—which we also recommended, is absolutely essential. The dilemma is that we live in a rich part of the world—a very rich part of the world compared with where the poorest people live—but people in poorer parts of the world aspire to the kind of living standards that we enjoy. If they are to do that in the same way that we did, we are short of the resources of two planets.

We cannot turn around and say to those people, “Thank you very much. We are very rich, and we are sorry, but there are too many of you and you are too far behind. You can no longer have that aspiration.” That would be intolerable—indeed, it would not be accepted—so what we have to say is, “How do we work together to enable you to aspire towards our level of living standards in ways that are compatible with sustaining life on the planet?” It is therefore welcome that sustainable development is involved in one of the five transformative shifts.

A further shift, which is relevant to my hon. Friend’s intervention, is transforming economies for jobs and inclusive growth, because ultimately that is fundamental to sustainable poverty elimination. Another shift is to build peace, and effective, open and accountable institutions for all. That is not just a pious declaration, because we know that the greatest poverty persists where there is conflict or in post-conflict situations. Ending conflict and moving people out of conflict are absolutely essential if we are to eliminate absolute poverty. The final shift is to forge a new global partnership, which I think means that every country should sign up to the new agenda, including those in the developed world, so that this is not an “us and them” scenario, but a global compact.

From those shifts, the high-level panel has proposed an outline of 12 goals, the first of which is to end poverty. The second is to empower girls and women, and achieve gender equality. As I have said on many platforms, I believe that that is one of the core necessities for poverty reduction and development. In too many poor countries, the exclusion of women, and indeed how they are treated, holds back their entire society. In my Committee’s recent report on violence against women and girls, we make the point that if women are treated as chattels, if they are beaten and mutilated and if they are denied rights to livelihood, legal representation and land, the whole society is denied the benefits of a proper partnership for growth and development. We feel strongly that that is an absolutely central issue.

The third goal is to provide quality education and lifelong learning in recognition of the fact that when primary and secondary systems have failed, people have to be given opportunities as adults. We must ensure that we deliver quality education. The fourth goal is to ensure healthy lives and basic health provision, while the fifth is to ensure food security and good nutrition. Again, a report that the Committee has just published identifies the changing patterns of what is needed if we are not just to feed the world, but to feed the world nutritiously. Too often we find that whole generations are stunted and blighted for life because of their poor diet.

The sixth goal—to achieve universal access to water and sanitation—is a huge challenge, but absolutely essential, while the seventh, which is to secure sustainable energy, has the potential for a great deal of global co-operation. I have already mentioned the aim of the eighth goal, which is to create jobs, sustainable livelihoods and equitable growth. The ninth goal is to manage natural resource assets sustainably, the 10th is to ensure good governance and effective institutions, and the 11th is to ensure stable and peaceful societies. The 12th goal is to create a global enabling environment and catalyse long-term finance. Those goals are just suggestions, because the point is that the process has to continue.

The Committee welcomes the fact that the high-level panel read our report. I am not suggesting that all members of the panel read it, but quite a few of them did. We know that for certain because two participants—or three, if the Prime Minister’s appearance before the Liaison Committee can be counted—gave evidence to us. I certainly hope that the Prime Minister and his advisers read the report, and I am sure that Michael Anderson, the distinguished and experienced civil servant who leads for us on these issues, has done so. We are pleased that a lot of the issues on which we tried to focus appear to have been taken forward, and we will continue to feed into the process.

There is a danger that setting an objective to eliminate absolute poverty by 2030 would lead to the conclusion that, if we succeed in doing that, it is job done, meaning that aid and development are no longer required. Raising people out of poverty means that they have an income equivalent to $2 a day, which is hardly a dream of untold wealth—we are talking about people who are still extremely poor.

As an aside, because it is exercising the Committee in another inquiry, it is said that countries graduate from low income to middle income at about $1,200 or $1,300 per capita a year, but countries such as the UK are approaching income of $40,000 per capita a year. I am not sure that I would regard a country in which the per capita income is $1,500 or $2,000 a year as anything like a rich country, or one that can solve absolute poverty in its own territory without co-operation and partnership with outside agencies. It seems to me that we can continue to provide such assistance for as long as the need persists.

I am pleased to have had a couple of opportunities to talk to the president of the World Bank, Dr Kim, who has made two things clear: we really must work to try to eliminate absolute poverty; and we should recognise that we need to raise the game beyond that and look to improving living standards way above the basic minimum that defines absolute poverty. He is clear that that means that we must engage with those middle-income countries that may be out of the bottom level of poverty but still have huge pockets of very severe poverty that require global shared responsibility and cannot just be left to be dealt with by the country’s own resources. I am speaking with countries such as India in mind. I think that our Committee will return to that matter over the next few months, and I hope that we will make further recommendations on how the Government should change their relationship with India and countries of a comparable ilk.

I am glad to have had the opportunity to present the Committee’s report to the Chamber, and I hope that we have made a useful contribution on where we think the focus should be. We absolutely support the case for ensuring that we have replacement development goals as soon as possible after 2015—in other words, by no later than 2016—and that those goals are sufficiently developed and refined so as to avoid the pitfalls of the first goals. The goals should enable us to deliver a clear strategy to address the fundamental problems of poverty and hardship over 15 years.

My only plea is regarding whether even 12 goals represents too many. We certainly do not want to have so many targets that people can pick and choose, or lose sight of them. One of the reasons why I like the five fundamental shifts is because, right at the core, they cover several fundamental issues on which we all agree, while the details are slightly more negotiable. In that context, the broad approach of the high-level panel is highly welcome, and we very much look forward to seeing how the process works.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

At the beginning of my right hon. Friend’s speech, I think he said that there has been a lack of progress in a number of the countries with which the UK is most engaged. Will he give us a few details on why that might be the case?

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[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

It is somewhat due to our decision to concentrate a high proportion of our bilateral aid programmes on countries that have emerged from conflict. The objective analysis shows that countries that have recently been in conflict, or are still in conflict, have the highest rates of poverty and the greatest resistance to poverty reduction, partly because they have dysfunctional Governments, corruption and a lack of law and order. I stress that that does not lead to the conclusion that it is too difficult to go there. We have taken a conscious decision of saying, “It is very difficult, but we will go there. It will be harder, but we believe that our engagement will ultimately help them to get out of this bind.” For example, Professor Paul Collier makes the point that the effects of preventing a war are difficult to quantify. He is clear, however, that the consequences for poverty and hardship of failing to prevent a war will be phenomenal and set back a country for a whole generation, so it is a reverse process.

We have gone to the most difficult places with a view to helping them to get out of conflict situations and to build up their capacity to function. That is difficult, however, because we are talking about countries such as Yemen, Somalia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and Afghanistan—those are the countries on our list. I make no apology about saying that it is right that we are there and it is good that we address those problems. We are making progress, but we have to be honest with people, because things are a darn sight more difficult in such countries. We could much more easily spend all our aid in India and China, where we know it would have transformative results, but that would leave the others out of the equation, and that is what we must not do and it is what the post-MDG settlement must not do. Instead, we must say that no one should be in absolute poverty by the end of the next phase in 2030.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

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[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Havard, to serve under your chairmanship. I want to declare a non-declarable interest. I am chairman of the all-party group on Ethiopia, which keeps me very busy and is extremely rewarding. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) and congratulate him on how he introduced the debate. I pay tribute to him and the Select Committee on their report. I am not a member of the Committee, but I chair the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs so I know how much work goes into inquiries and putting reports together. Select Committee reports are often influential and I have absolutely no doubt that this one will be.

It is probably fair to say that when I was elected to this place 16 years ago, international development, overseas aid or whatever it was called at the time had a profile largely because of the work of Baroness Chalker, who was Linda Chalker at the time. It is also fair to say that it has taken off during the past 16 years and its profile has increased. I am happy to pay tribute to the work carried out by Tony Blair in that respect, and by Clare Short, who worked with him and with whom I recently shared a platform .

It is a pleasure that the Government, under the Prime Minister’s particular leadership, have taken forward the international development agenda and, as my right hon. Friend said, taken on co-chairmanship of the new panel that is responsible for delivering achievement of the millennium development goals beyond 2015. The issue is talked about throughout the world. It has its own place in Parliaments and is extremely important. The G8 always discusses the matter and I am pleased that it has been recognised as one of the most important issues in the world today. I would put it up there with the environment as the two most important issues facing the world today.

I am pleased that the Government have at last moved us to a figure of 0.7% of GDP on aid, although I am the first to say that it is outcomes rather than what one spends that matters. I have in the past been a little sceptical about setting targets, and the Conservative party went into the last election saying that it would get rid of many targets. They can be manipulated, as my right hon. Friend said—he did not use the word “manipulate”—and may take us down a path that is easy but does not achieve much.

I approve of the setting of millennium development goals because that focuses the Government and the world on what we should start to achieve. The 0.7% figure is a target that we have achieved, but we must measure properly. As my right hon. Friend highlighted, it is easy to make important the things that we can measure while forgetting things that are not easy to measure, but are more important.

No one who has been to Africa—that is the area I focus on most—and seen how people live there can come back and complain about the fact that we are trying to help those people and those countries. It is devastating to see the effect of starvation, disease, poverty and, linked to them, lack of education and health care. People tell me that pensioners in this country suffer fuel poverty—indeed they do and they need help—but our country is rich enough to do both things. A lot of Government spending is wasted, and we could channel more money into helping people such as our own pensioners who often live in fuel poverty, while also helping people who live in third-world countries.

There was an example of that just last week. We spend £11 billion or £11.5 billion in aid, but in one day last week the potential cost of HS2 went up by almost that amount. That is what I mean when I talk about being able to help our own people who need it and people abroad who are dying of diseases and malnutrition. A world of plenty that throws food away as we do should be ashamed of that, and I am pleased that we are, at last, tackling the problem as seriously as we should.

I support emergency aid and relief, and I have seen examples of such provision being necessary in Ethiopia, where, every year, about 6 million people rely on food donations.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I commend my hon. Friend on his work as chair of the all-party group on Ethiopia. Does he accept that the crisis that brought the world’s attention to starvation was in Ethiopia more than 25 years ago, and that in more recent years it has had the resources as a result of partnership to tackle its own food problems, partly by building roads and partly through better planning? That is a demonstrable manifestation of how aid works. It works well when Governments have the will and partners have the resources to put it together to make it happen.

[Mr Robertson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was talking to Bob Geldof at the Irish embassy a while ago and when he asked me what got me interested in Ethiopia I said, “You did.” He did an enormous and unbelievable amount of work and if any one person put the issue on the agenda it was him. I should have mentioned him earlier. Some people say that that work set Ethiopia back because it is a wonderful place for tourists to visit but they will not do so because of the poverty—there is probably something in that—but we cannot ignore what goes on there and that people were starving to death. Although things have moved on considerably in Ethiopia, each and every year about 6 million people there still do not have food security and are dependent on assistance. I am certainly in favour of emergency relief and of development aid, which is important in helping countries develop infrastructure, irrigation systems and other things that will help them move towards self-sufficiency over a period of time.

My right hon. Friend is also right to talk about trade and employment, which will enable people to become better off. Over the last few years, each time I have gone to Ethiopia I have noticed renewed confidence in its economy and in business, which appear to have moved on a little since each previous visit. That is encouraging, but I do not want to overstate the situation and an awful lot remains to be done. To move forward properly, Ethiopia must free up its telecoms business, its banking and financial services sector and the ownership of land. An awful lot needs to be done, but there is progress.

Many countries need confidence in democracy and the private sector to enable them to move forward a little quicker, but many of them have brief histories. Ethiopia has a long history of about 2,000 years that we know about, but it does not have a long history of democracy and that is how we must view it in some ways. Everything is relative. We still get elections wrong in this country, even today, so we should not be too judgmental about other countries.

In response to my intervention, my right hon. Friend put his finger on the difficult problem of measuring and chasing certain aspects of progress. Often the poorest people—those who are most desperate—live in the sort of countries that it is difficult to get aid to in one form or another, and where it is difficult to help them towards development, with Somalia being the most obvious example. However, we have to work and do our best—almost by going under the radar—to get aid, assistance and help to people who we do not know or have contact with, but who are the most desperate of all. Doing so is difficult, but anything worth doing is never easy. I hope that we will continue trying to help such people and continue trying to work with countries in Africa and the heads of those countries, as we are doing, to take them towards peace. Again, as my Friend the right hon. Member for Gordon said, we cannot measure this, but I hope we can help them to avoid conflict in the first place. That is far better than going in to sort it out, which is not always possible.

I do not want to speak for much longer; I know that another debate is coming up. Again, I congratulate the Members involved on compiling the report. To me, this area is one of the main reasons that I entered politics in the first place. I will be in the House tomorrow, supporting the European Union (Referendum) Bill, and I am a complete free marketeer. I am considered to sit on the right wing of the Conservative party, even though such terms are nonsense, because most people would follow me in what I will say and do tomorrow. However, when it comes to international development, we have a moral duty to do what needs to be done. In addition, we should not forget that the better off we can make countries throughout the world, the more secure that makes this country, and the more opportunities it gives us in this country. From a purely selfish point of view, there is a benefit to what we are doing. To my mind, however, that is not the main reason for doing it; the main reason is that it is humane, and it is the right thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I wholly endorse what the hon. Lady has just said. The International Development Committee is conducting an inquiry on precisely how we can alter the mechanisms by which we deliver. Although it is right to focus on the poorest people in the poorest countries, we should not leave behind equally poor people in less poor countries. That probably requires some change in the DFID model from what we have been doing perfectly correctly over the past 15 years.

[Rushanara Ali]

I look forward to the next instalment from the Committee, the right hon. Gentleman and his team. We need to settle the question of how we respond to some of the domestic criticisms on giving aid to big emerging economies, such as India, where hundreds of millions of people still face deep poverty. Many other nations are in that position. We need a political response and an approach that explains why such aid matters. We must also look at how the international community brings in nations that are doing well, such as India and China, to be genuine partners in development, so that we can contribute together to tackle poverty in middle-income countries. Only then will we be able to address the political criticisms and critiques that we face in our country—that also happens in other countries—and settle the question of how we should respond to the challenges.

If we do not address poverty in middle-income countries, we will set ourselves up for future problems—and even very wealthy countries have recently faced conflict. It is far better to anticipate difficulties and consider how we might respond as part of the development agenda process, so I hope the Minister will shed more light on her ideas about how we might do that.

In the remaining time, I shall focus on economic growth and development. Right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned the importance of employment, economic growth and the role of the private sector. Opposition Members very much support building self-sufficiency and creating opportunities for people to become independent and be able to look after themselves, which is at the heart of what people want. We need to ensure that the allocation of DFID resources through private sector programmes is transparent and properly monitored, just as we would expect with NGOs, and that public money is not used in an ideological manner. We must look at where the impact is, whether the outcomes are those that we sought—creating opportunity, jobs and economic development—and whether the programmes are pro-poor.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I will be very brief indeed. I thank everybody who has contributed; it has been a good debate. I wish that more people had taken part, because this is a very important issue. I am grateful to the shadow Minister for her constructive and inclusive comments, and that is the way we have to work on this particular agenda. She is right to say that we must explain to those critics in this country why what we are doing is in our national interest as well as—in the words of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson)—our moral responsibility. The high-level panel has made an extremely good start, but there is obviously a process that continues from here.

I say to the Prime Minister what I said to him in the Liaison Committee and in our own evidence that I hope he will maintain ownership of this process, even though the work of the high-level panel has finished. It is absolutely right that he was a co-chair, but we urge him to continue to take an interest in the matter, because his interest will help to drive it to the right conclusions. I thank everyone who has participated, and I thank the Minister for her comments. I can assure the Chamber that we as a Committee will continue, I hope, to feed in useful suggestions based on the evidence that we receive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We have made beneficial ownership one of the key elements of our G8 agenda, and it is right to do so. I do not recall the hon. Gentleman’s Government particularly pushing on the issue during their 13 years in office. I can assure him that the best way to make a difference for developing countries is to get international agreement. That is what they want and that is why we are trying to get it.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

In the light of the Select Committee on International Development’s recent report, and following the election, will the Secretary of State engage with the Government of Pakistan to ensure that Ministers, MPs and the leaders of the community there pay their fair share of taxes to match the contribution that British development aid is making to Pakistan?

[Justine Greening]

We have a question on the Order Paper later about Pakistan, Mr Speaker. I have already spoken with Ministers in the Pakistani Government, and the Committee’s report was right to highlight this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

As we approach the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster, will the Prime Minister join me in recognising the challenges we face in continuing to bring oil and gas ashore from the North sea, the skills and dedication of those who do it and the paramount importance of safety in ensuring that we can continue to exploit these resources?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly join my right hon. Friend in praising the North sea oil and gas industry. It is a real jewel in the crown of the United Kingdom economy. What is encouraging is that this year we are seeing a growth in production, as a number of new fields and projects come on stream, but he is absolutely right to say that at all times safety and security are absolutely paramount.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We are encouraging the resumption of aid by bilateral partners. In May, there will be a donor conference on Mali, which is an important step, not just as a pledging conference. There is a political crisis in Mali, and the solution is political, which is why we welcome the recent announcement by the Malian authorities to initiate a commission on dialogue and reconciliation.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her encouraging answer, but may I ask her to go further and consider whether the UK Government could work with France and the EU to address the fragility across the region and deliver co-ordinated and sustained development assistance to the Sahel and the whole region?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my right hon. Friend. This very issue was discussed at the recent Development Ministers meeting. Stability in the Sahel—the wider region—is of absolute importance. The UK has committed £78 million in humanitarian support to the Sahel through various United Nations agencies, and we continue to work right across the region to create stability and peace.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

We give our full support to the recently launched If campaign; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State went to the launch herself. I do agree with the hon. Lady that this should be a focus of our activity, as 90% of food comes from smallholders in their own countries. Supporting them and the markets in which they work is a crucial part of the activity we wish to undertake over the next few years.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The Minister may be aware that the International Development Committee is publishing its report on the Department’s annual report tomorrow. Is he prepared to consider different ways of ridding the world of absolute poverty, such as setting up a development bank or offering loans so that we can reach more people, particularly poor people in middle-income countries where we do not currently have programmes?

[Mr Duncan]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on that ingenious plug for his report and on the idea of a development bank. We remain open-minded and non- dogmatic about what we should do with our budget. What matters is what works. As always, we will study his report in detail and reply formally to any ideas in it.

Afghanistan

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The indulgence of the House has allowed the Committee to bring two reports for debate, and we are grateful for that. Indeed, under the new procedure we had the advantage of briefly presenting the report on Afghanistan in the main Chamber, which enabled us to have a good, topical exchange. Therefore, I do not wish to detain the Committee by repeating too much of what was said; instead, I want to focus on points of difference and points of commonality between the Committee and the Government.

Obviously, the most contentious thing we said in our report was that the Department for International Development’s unique mandate in Afghanistan of promoting a viable state, which it was given by the National Security Committee, was—I think this is the best way to express it—unrealistically ambitious. I have read the Government’s response, and I did not expect them necessarily to accept what we said, but we thought it was important to raise the issue. Of course we, too, would like Afghanistan to be a viable state. After all the trouble that the people of Afghanistan have been through, they deserve a viable state, and anything the UK Government can do to contribute to that is right, proper and responsible, so I hope we have agreement on that.

Our concern, however, was that there was an over-extended idea of what DFID, specifically, was capable of achieving. That took us away from the fact that DFID is good at promoting development, in the sense of better governance, which is a contribution towards a viable state; encouraging livelihoods; delivering education and health; and generally improving quality of life. In a situation that will be very uncertain and unpredictable post-2014, we felt it would perhaps be better to make that DFID’s priority. In any case, the Government have mandated DFID to do that, and I quite understand that it will say, “That is our responsibility. That is what we want to do, and we will say how.” However, I hope the Minister will understand that our comments were meant in the spirit not only of saying, “Let’s get hold of what’s possible,” but of establishing what the real priorities should be, given what DFID can realistically do, rather than getting ourselves too hung up on aspirations that require many more players—indeed, the entire international community and all the players in Afghanistan—to deliver.

That said, the Committee decided it was important to revisit the situation in Afghanistan to look beyond the date when the engagement of combat troops comes to an end at the end of 2014. The Committee had visited Afghanistan five years before; the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) was on that visit, and I obviously went on both visits. The visit this time took place between 17 and 21 June 2012. We recorded that we were inhibited by the security situation from getting as deeply into development projects as we would have liked. Nevertheless, we had a useful visit, and we had the opportunity to engage with a number of important players.

Once we had analysed the situation, we felt there was a second significant comment to make. It was impressed on us time and again that the almost defining dilemma in Afghanistan—indeed, the way we could articulate the progress that had been, and continued to be, made there—was the status of women. A lot of the information presented to us—it consisted not just of statements; it was backed up by facts and figures—said that Afghanistan is, without qualification, the worst place in the world to be a woman.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

The IDC’s excellent report makes a number of really important statements on this issue. In particular, it states that

“the treatment of women…post-2014 will be the litmus test”

for success. There has been a lot of progress in the past 10 years, but 87% of Afghan women still face some form of violence. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that one solution would be for the next operational plan to include women’s rights, and particularly dealing with violence against women, as a thematic priority?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Yes, the Committee does think that. To be honest, we would like the Government to take a much more explicit position on that. In reply to us, they said that, based on the Tokyo agreement and other measures, they believed enough was in place to protect the achievements so far and the rights of women post-2014. I have to say that that view was not widely shared by the women we met, which was not very many, but the ones we did meet were very vocal. Although we understand the Government’s reasoning, when we tried to look at programmes specifically aimed at the rights and needs of women, we found that those programmes really did not exist. The response to that is, “Well, that’s mainstreaming.” However, the issue of women in Afghanistan is such that mainstreaming simply is not, and cannot be, enough. That is precisely why we used the expression “litmus test”.

Those are the two most contentious things we said, and I am quite certain the Committee will stand by them. No doubt, the Minister will stand by the Government’s response. Even if we disagree, however, I hope we can accommodate the fact that we are looking for the maximum engagement by the UK Government to ensure that the progress that has been made is, to the extent that we have the capacity to do this, continued beyond 2014. I also hope we recognise that monitoring the rights and progress of women is the best single way of identifying what is going on in Afghanistan. I put it as crudely as this: if the position of women in education and employment, and the moves to tackle violence against women, have moved in a positive direction by 2020, we can be sure that Afghanistan has moved in a positive direction; if the reverse is true, the reverse will be true for the whole of Afghanistan.

That does not mean there has not been a lot of progress or that we can make any serious predictions about where Afghanistan will be by 2014. The optimists say, “It’s a success. By 2014, we will have achieved a fully trained army, a fully functioning police force and a viable Government. We can withdraw. Afghanistan is secure as a functioning, viable and, to some extent, democratic state.” That is absolutely what we would like it to be, but I do not think anybody believes it will be like that. However, it seemed to us that the pessimists, who think Afghanistan will immediately collapse and be taken over by the Taliban, were unlikely to be right either. The picture seemed much more confused and unpredictable. We do not even know who the Government will be, who will be elected President or what the composition of the Parliament will be.

We received some disturbing evidence. BBC correspondent David Loyn is quoted in our evidence as describing Afghanistan as a “rentier state”. In other words, an awful lot of the movers and shakers simply go where the money is and siphon it off for their own purposes. Not all of it is going that way, because clearly if it were, there would not be progress in the number of girls in school and children being vaccinated, or in the delivery of health services and the improvement of roads. It is completely wrong to think that nothing has been delivered. A lot has been delivered, and progress has been made. There are now 3 million girls in school, where there were none before; but there are probably another 3 million who are still not in school, so let us not lose sight of that. We have not cracked the whole problem.

Such things are variable across Afghanistan. One of our difficulties was that we could not go to places we should have liked to visit; but there is plenty of evidence to show that things are very difficult in some places and better in others. That has probably always been true of Afghanistan. It has always been a centripetal kind of state, with a lot of variability. One group in the Committee went to Helmand, and one group, which included me, went to Bamiyan. That is a tale of two completely different Afghanistans. Helmand, which is of course in the headlines as far as Britain is concerned, is where British troops are deployed, where we run the provincial reconstruction team, and where we have suffered substantial casualties.

I do not want to get engaged in the question of the military position in Afghanistan. It has been well expressed and documented, in Helmand in particular, but it is clear to the Committee that we cannot, post-2014 when the PRT is closed and the combat troops are withdrawn, leave the people of Helmand without any commitment from the UK to their future development. However, we must recognise, as the Department for International Development has done, that operating a district office, for example, is unlikely to be achievable in that scenario. Indeed, the decision has been taken that that will not happen, so the programme will have to be run out of Kabul. Therefore, in our view, we must have a different approach, involving partners who can, as our representatives, engage locally and win the trust, and the hearts and minds, of people on the ground. It cannot be done from Kabul; it must be done by people who are there, who probably will not be DFID personnel.

On the other hand, those of us who went to Bamiyan—unfortunately it was only for a day trip and we could not stay for a second day as had been intended, or get out and about as we had hoped—saw a completely different picture. It is worth recording that the PRT, which is being wound down, is led by the New Zealanders. We had a spectacular flight into Bamiyan, through the mountains and past the Buddhas on to the airfield by which the PRT is located and were quickly whisked from the plane to the PRT. The New Zealand commander said he would happily have walked into town with us, as he had done with a three-star American general in full uniform several weeks before. They were able to sit down in a coffee house, and all that happened on the walk to town, a mile there and back, was that the general was stopped every few yards by people insisting on having their photograph taken with him, shaking his hand and thanking him and the NATO forces for bringing what they saw as peace and opportunities for prosperity and development. The records show that in Bamiyan there has not been an explosion of any kind of ordnance in 10 years; so not all in Afghanistan is violence, conflict and insecurity. There is a variation, from one extreme to the other. It is important to note that, because it shows that there are opportunities.

The chancellor of the university in Bamiyan told us that the matriculation of young women students had gone up from under 10% to more than a third of students in three years. As he put it, fathers and young men appreciated the prospect of educated daughters and wives. That was positive and good.

Having gone to the contentious places, we concluded—and I think that the Government agree—that the programme must be flexible and fleet of foot, and will have to respond to rapidly changing and unpredictable circumstances. We suggest that that approach is more likely to work. Indeed, if there is a plan B that recognises that, we will not be inhibited by sudden changes of direction; we shall have enough options.

Others want to speak, so I do not want to detain the House other than to say that we made a particular recommendation about our concern about the security forces, with which the Government did not wholly agree. Some colleagues had a briefing earlier in the week, which I could not attend, and they may say more if they catch your eye, Mr Walker. My understanding is that there are points of concern about the treatment of people in detention, which has deteriorated; about the variable functioning of the police; and, particularly, to return to the gender issue, about the shortage of women police—there are only 1,300—and the clear need for many more of them. In the post-2014 situation, trust between the people and the police will be a crucial part of security and space for development.

Will the Minister tell us something about the future of the community development councils? We did not have much chance to engage with them this time, but we got evidence about them, and have engaged with them in the past. Our view was that they are a good basis for grass-roots democracy and the building up of a more decentralised capacity. In that context we wanted more devolution of decision making to the provinces, because the nature of Afghanistan is that capacity is needed across the country. Kabul does not hold Afghanistan and if there is no capacity for administration and policy delivery outside Kabul the country cannot hold. We are concerned about the extent to which the UK Government, who have a policy in that area, will help to deliver it further.

The Committee has a positive wish that those who believe that the engagement in Afghanistan was a mistake should be proved wrong. Most of us do not believe we should not have been there. Indeed, there was plenty of evidence that an awful lot of people in Afghanistan are extremely grateful for the improvements in their circumstances since the NATO engagement, compared with the previous 20 years. The optimistic point is that an awful lot of people therefore have a stake in ensuring that those improvements should not be lost. It seems to the Committee that the role of the UK Government, in co-ordination with the international community, is to do all that they can to ensure that those gains will be maintained and, if possible, extended. In those circumstances the priority for DFID is to do what it does best—development—rather than nation building.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank the Minister for his most constructive response to what has been a good debate. Indeed, I thank everyone who has taken part.

In spite of the differences of emphasis, I believe that our report has been well received. It has provided a useful focus for those who are either too positive or too negative about the future. It is much better to be realistic, recognising the challenges and coming up with constructive recommendations on the understanding that there is a need to be flexible. Although we do not agree on everything, the Minister’s response demonstrates that we are on the same page as far as the overall objective is concerned.

I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) in pointing out that we cannot say often enough to those British people who will listen that the idea that our engagement in Afghanistan has been a failure and has not made a positive difference is simply not true. It has made a huge difference. The situation is difficult. It is a difficult country and there are lots of challenges, but we have met so many people whose lives have been dramatically improved, and the statistics bear that out.

I am absolutely certain that the successors of the current Committee members in another Parliament will go back to Afghanistan in four or five years’ time. I hope that the fears will not have been realised and that some of the hopes will have been fulfilled. I hope that they still have a democracy and a functioning Parliament, but above all I hope that the position of women in Afghanistan is not as good as today but much better, or at least moving in the right direction. I repeat exactly the point that the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) made: for the Committee, that will be the litmus test of whether the engagement in Afghanistan has delivered real social and political change. We hope that it will have, and we believe that it can, and we absolutely agree that the UK Government have a key role to play. Regardless of the differences of emphasis, DFID in Afghanistan has our full support.

Question put and agreed to.

Tax (Developing Countries)

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The Select Committee on International Development is extremely grateful for the opportunity to debate two of our reports. The first is on tax in developing countries, and the second is on Afghanistan. We think both issues are important, although they are obviously completely different in their scope.

The Committee has long recognised that when British taxpayers put substantial resources into supporting developing countries, it is important that those countries raise their own tax base so that we are effectively working in partnership to develop their economies and services. Of course we recognise that the tax base in poor countries is inevitably low, and that the last thing that many people on very low incomes need is to be harried for tax. Nevertheless, almost every country has a variety of ways in which money can legitimately and properly be raised from different aspects of its economy. I will first mention the internal issues affecting developing countries and the role that the UK Government can play in addressing them. Members of our Committee often hear, as a mark of frustration that in many developing countries, willingness to pay tax in the sector of the population who have the capacity to do so is rather low. It is difficult to set a good example if Presidents, Prime Ministers, MPs and leading business people make little or, in some cases, absolutely no contribution to their own Exchequer. Before we consider the international dimension, it is worth putting on record that the Committee says, right at the start, that we should ensure that people who can pay tax in their home countries do so. Performance is variable; I am not suggesting that all countries are the same or equally bad.

Of course, many non-governmental organisations and campaigners focus on tax paid by national and international corporations. I will certainly come to that, and it is extremely important, but equality of treatment seems relevant. If we are to say, as we should and must, that national and international corporations operating in developing countries should pay their full share of tax, it is helpful if, for example, the local directors of those companies also pay their share of tax, and that the approach is seen to be equitable.

Having said that, I want to consider the issues affecting the tax paid by corporations operating internationally, and to make it clear to the House that although we examined tax in developing countries worldwide, we took Zambia as our case study because we felt that it had a growing and diverse tax base, with which we could perhaps test what could be achieved. We had a good visit to Zambia, which I will discuss a little later.

We made numerous recommendations in our report. The Government did not readily accept all of them, but they did accept some, and there are some that we hope they will work on. Indeed, developments in our own domestic circumstances in recent weeks have sharpened the debate and perhaps given the British Government pause to think that some of our recommendations are just as relevant to the UK as to poorer developing countries.

We recommended that the Government introduce legislation, similar to the American Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, that would require tax authorities automatically to exchange information regarding UK citizens and corporations. The Government did not accept that, saying that there were difficulties—although the US seems to have managed it—but I think that more recently they have softened their line a little.

A number of our recommendations were designed to improve information exchange and transparency. The problem for all tax authorities is that if they do not have basic information about what individuals or companies are earning, it is pretty difficult to tax them fairly or at all. The classic practice for international companies is to move their earnings around to where they can secure the lowest taxation impact, or none. A lot of that might be legitimate, in that international corporations have international transactions that are not really attributable anywhere, although they should be taxed somewhere.

However, when serious, very identifiable economic activity is plainly taking place in an economic jurisdiction but little or no tax is being paid, something is obviously not right. When we engaged with the Zambian authorities, particularly about the taxation of their minerals and especially their copper industry, we got into the nitty-gritty of that. The copper industry in Zambia has operated for about 70 years. It dates back to colonial times and has been under different ownership; at one point it was owned by the state Government of Zambia, who frankly did not make a very good fist of it and ended up losing money on the copper mines. The timing was not good, and the operational management was probably not good either, so the mines were subsequently returned to private ownership.

That has been a good thing for Zambia. Copper prices have risen, the tax base has risen and taxes are being paid, which is making a significant contribution, but there is a degree of frustration and unhappiness. The Zambian authorities feel that the full amount of tax that could or should be paid on the basis of the economic activity within Zambia is not being paid, mostly due to the practice of transfer pricing. Exploring the debate reinforced our view that transparency of information is key to getting the tax base right.

If I give an example of the extreme view, it is easy to understand the issue. If a company had a very large productive mine—an obviously profitable commodity—in a developing country but paid a substantial amount of tax, albeit on a low rate on earnings, in the Cayman Islands, most people would understand that the Cayman Islands is not rich in the minerals on which the company was being taxed and that that was therefore an inappropriate redistribution of the accounts. It becomes more complicated, of course, when companies have many operating bases and lots of different activities, but the principle is nevertheless the same. We are trying to ensure that companies pay a fair tax on the activities that they conduct in any given geographical area to the Government of that country. That is corporation or related tax.

Zambia has gone through numerous different ways of doing things. It had an excess profits tax and a variable corporation tax. We discovered that the problem with all those approaches was that the licences under which different mines operated had been issued at different times by different Governments on different terms, all allowing companies to claim tax breaks, loss offsetting and so on, which enabled them to pay little or no tax. The resolution to that situation, which has not been entirely popular with the industry but which we understand and broadly support, has been to move to a system of royalties, set at 6% of turnover based on the company’s declared tonnages, knowledge of the ore quality and the prices set per day on the London Metal Exchange. The net result of that for those companies that complain is that it is something that is easy for the Zambian authorities to administer. It might be rough justice, but companies must come up with a credible alternative, which they have not done, if they argue that there is a better way of doing it. It looks as though that is likely to lead to a steadily rising revenue base for Zambia. I conclude from that that, on the whole, Zambia emerges as a pretty good case study.

On the copper belt and copper production, we had an extremely good exchange with Ministers and civil servants in Lusaka about the rest of the tax base. There is a ready recognition that, as Zambia’s economy grows, it should not be totally reliant on copper for its public finances; it wants instead to expand the tax base. It was looking for advice and help on how to do that. In other words, what can they tax efficiently, fairly and not counter-productively and how far down the earnings scale is it sensible to go? Clearly, it is neither administratively sensible nor economically wise to tax people at the very bottom. That made us realise that there was scope for the UK Government to do a lot more in partnership with developing countries to enable them to improve their revenue-collecting capacity. I can quote examples—good and bad—where that is happening. I have already mentioned Zambia. We have evidence that similar success has been achieved in Tanzania where the dependence on UK and other forms of development assistance is falling as a proportion of its overall budget because its tax base is rising. It is absolutely true of Rwanda, which is spectacularly successful in this area.

Interestingly, the head of the revenue authority in Burundi, who was previously in Rwanda and who is a British national with a strong Irish connection, has demonstrated a singular capacity to raise the revenue base in Burundi, which is a very poor country. For the Minister’s benefit, let me say in passing that it remains stubbornly the view of the Committee that Burundi should continue to receive UK aid. Whether or not the decision to close down the programme was misjudged, the case for continuing it is strong, and we will continue to make it.

The Committee took evidence this morning on Pakistan, where the position is depressingly unsuccessful. I should probably first mention Afghanistan, which we will be debating later. Thanks largely, but not exclusively, to the support of the UK Government, the tax base in Afghanistan has risen from almost nothing—3%—to 11% in the last few years, and the potential to raise it further is clearly evident. I can promise my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who was a bit disgruntled because she did not hear a lot of the presentation we were given, that the content was good in that it showed how much the revenue base had risen, how much more potential there was and how valuable the UK Government support was. All that was achieved by officials working inside the Ministry to help get a handle on the figures.

The revenue collection in Pakistan is under 10%, which is awful for a well established country. Although it is classified as a lower-middle income country, it is, none the less, a middle income country. Bluntly, the figures are such because the leaders of Pakistan do not believe that taxes are a club they wish to join. Some 80% of MPs and the President pay nothing, so the will to collect tax is almost non-existent. Obviously, the Committee must deliberate further, and we will take more evidence from the Secretary of State next week and then produce a report. We are likely to say that Pakistan cannot go on expecting to receive unconditionally the bounty of the international community while not addressing the issue. That is simply not morally acceptable, economically sensible or fair. I can predict that we will come out with something fairly hard on that issue.

My point is that collection can be improved, and where that is done, it makes a difference. Where it is not being done, it needs to be done. Much more transparency is needed and information should be published on a country-by-country basis. I urge the Prime Minister, through my hon. Friend the Minister, whom I am delighted to see in her position and whose response I look forward to hearing, to look into the matter. What has happened in the UK in the past few months has possibly sharpened the focus of the Government. We will be chairing the G8 and, in that context, we are told that taxation will be a central issue. However, I suggest to the Government that while it is understandable that such an issue is driven by a degree of public anger against companies such as Amazon and Starbucks—Starbucks has been shamed into changing its stance on this—it should be recognised that if it is a problem for us, it is a much bigger problem for very poor countries, which might have a very limited amount of economic activity that is controlled and owned by overseas companies. I urge the Government to ensure that in the process of trying to raise the commitment to get an international agreement on tax, the interests of poor and developing countries are given special attention.

It has been recognised that, at a time of recession when Governments are clearly struggling with deficits, the knowledge that tax, which could or should accrue to a country’s Exchequer, is not doing so perhaps causes more anger than it would in normal times. Of course it is right that companies that are operating within our jurisdiction should pay their fair share of taxes. Perhaps it is because we are hurting that developing countries will benefit from a policy initiative that might not otherwise have taken off. We should try to get an international agreement that all countries will ensure a standard of accounting that makes all the relevant information clearly available in the public domain, so that revenue authorities can fairly assess where tax should accrue and where it is liable.

In Zambia, we were told that quite a lot of information is available, but it is not quite as easily available to the ordinary Zambian. It is very easily available to any sophisticated westerner with a credit card, but a person with no access to computers or to credit and who does not understand the system has a very small chance of finding such information even though it is available to them. We need to improve that and make information more accessible.

We hope the Government will take on board our recommendations and think about them a little more. We agree, I think, on the capacity to do more. We have suggested that the Government consider a more proactive partnership with our own Revenue and Customs. Where appropriate, of course it should be collecting our taxes, but, where we can, we should second people or support the Revenue to work alongside revenue authorities in developing countries to build up their capacity for tax. It is in the interests of donors, the people in the country, and the international community to ensure that that happens. We hope and understand that the Government are actively considering that matter, but it would be good to hear from the Minister what progress is being made.

The issue of tax has clearly caught the imagination of some of the NGOs, who are making 2013 a big year for tax justice. I am not here to be the mouthpiece of Christian Aid or the NGO consortium, but I am happy to record their views. As it happens, a number of our constituents were visited by the Christian Aid bus over the summer. It certainly rolled up in my constituency—I wonder why! I had a good meeting with both local activists and senior NGO members, who very much welcomed our report. Perhaps not surprisingly, they focused very sharply on the corporate issues that I have been discussing. However, I said that they should not just target the international economic players; it was really important that they also joined the campaign to ensure that rich elites in developing countries accept their responsibilities, because the interconnection between the two is inescapable.

Christian Aid has said that it wants to tackle the issue, that it wants the Government to tackle the issue and that it wants to shine a light on it. It highlights information that may or may not be true, but the figures that are given are huge. It says that as much as £13 trillion of potential taxes are locked up and “hidden in tax havens”. Whether that is true or not—£13 trillion is an awful lot of money, so even if the true figure is half or just a fraction of that, it is significant.

Again, I do not put too much credence on the figures per se, but Christian Aid also talks about a figure of $160 billion annually that developing countries are losing in tax, which is far, far more than the entire flow of overseas development assistance to those countries. I am not suggesting that to solve that problem we can cut the development budget, but clearly there is not much point in handing out development aid if we are not getting access to the resources that should be credited to the countries concerned, which are entitled to them.

To conclude on this report on tax, I will talk about two simple things—certainly one of them is simple and the other is not as difficult as it perhaps has appeared before—that the Government could and should do. Actually, the Government are doing the first thing, and I just want to hear that they are doing more of it. That is making raising the tax base one of the key components of our bilateral programmes, particularly where we are engaged in-country, and putting real resource alongside the Governments with whom, we are working, both to get those Governments to show the political will to raise taxes and to give them the capacity—through revenue collection—to secure the revenue. The second thing is to be prepared to take a lead, I guess, and for the UK to be more transparent and to demonstrate, by example, that we can be more open. Certainly, we must also encourage international agreement to get as much transparency as possible.

I mentioned the subject of minerals earlier when I discussed Zambia. There was one particular issue that was raised with us that the Government did not reply to directly in responding to our report, which is membership of the extractive industries transparency initiative. The EITI was actually a UK Government idea; effectively, it was Tony Blair’s idea. It is a good idea, and the initiative has been signed up to by many countries, including developing countries, but it has not been signed up to by the UK. We understand that the argument against our signing is that it was not considered that the UK was mineral-rich. Well, I represent a constituency in the north-east of Scotland and I think that we are quite mineral-rich still, actually. Mineral extraction may not be a huge proportion of our GDP, but in absolute terms minerals are not an insignificant resource for us. However, that is almost beside the point, Mr Gale—Sir Roger. I beg your pardon. It happens to me all the time, and it happens to you, too.

I ask the Government to seriously consider signing up to the initiative, because it would demonstrate that we are serious about the issue, too. If the argument against our signing is that we do not have a huge mineral base, then it should not be very difficult for us to comply. As I say, however, the Government kind of avoided answering that particular question on the EITI. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Minister is in a capacity to commit the Government to do something; if she is not, I hope that she will report our Committee’s view that signing up would be a good step for the Government to take.

With that, Sir Roger, I must say that I am grateful to the House for letting us have this opportunity to debate the issue. I genuinely commend the report. I think that it is about a very important part of what our development relationship with countries should be. We have made good progress, but there is a lot more that we can do.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Thank you very much, Sir Malcolm. I think it is one-all—I owe you an apology as well.

I also apologise to Members for the fact that I had not really grasped the implications of there being two debates this afternoon with no time separation between them. I now propose to deal with that issue, and to explain what I think we will try to achieve.

There is no time limit on this first debate, but obviously there is a limit on the totality of time available in Westminster Hall today; the sitting must end at 4.30 pm. So it really is up to hon. Members to decide how they wish to split that time. I propose to call Mr Burden, Mrs Latham, Mr Stunell and Mr Lefroy, and then the Opposition Front Bencher and the Minister. I will then allow, as I think is traditional, a couple of minutes at the end if the Chair of the Committee wishes to wrap up the first part of the debate. However, we will treat this as two separate debates.

I suggest at this stage that although we do not know how we will run for time, the Opposition Front Bencher and the Minister might consider taking about 10 minutes each, if that is adequate.

I hope that is clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Roger.

I am pleased to speak in this debate on the report on tax in developing countries published by the Select Committee on International Development. It is difficult for us to lecture other countries when we do not have our own house in order. I am pleased that the Chancellor is considering how he might tax companies that are not paying their fair share of tax here because, like developing countries, we need tax to address our deficit if we are to continue—and we will continue—to fund international development and many other things. I will be pleased when the Chancellor of the Exchequer returns to tell the House of Commons exactly how he will do that, because it is important. I completely support my two colleagues who spoke before me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden).

I will focus on the part of the report on the role of the extractive industries transparency initiative, which was mentioned by both my colleagues. I am particularly interested in that topic, on which I have tabled written parliamentary questions, and next month I will be visiting a coal mine in South Africa with the Industry and Parliament Trust. I was going to go to a diamond mine, but I have been downgraded, although there will be no problem with free gifts at the end of the visit.

I currently chair the extractive industries transparency initiative group, which is currently an informal body, but I am hoping for it to become an all-party group very shortly as I have just found a final member. At a meeting of the group before Christmas, our guest speaker was the chair of the EITI, the former Secretary of State for International Development, the right hon. Clare Short, who provided a valuable insight into the EITI’s worthwhile work.

The establishment of the EITI was a massive step forward, and I pay tribute to the previous Labour Government for taking the lead in founding the initiative. The underlying principle of the EITI is that Governments disclose the amounts they receive from corporations in the extractive sectors, including payments of taxes, signature bonuses and royalties, and corporations operating in participating countries make a corresponding disclosure of the payments they make to the respective Governments. An EITI report for the relevant country is then published, reconciling the amounts paid by corporations with the amounts received by the Government. Any discrepancy between the two amounts may indicate that revenues are falling into the hands of corrupt officials, which is not unusual in many of the countries we talk about in the international development sector. The methods used are an extremely effective way of identifying possible corruption, and ensuring that the two figures correspond is one way in which people in participating countries are able to call their Governments to account.

There are two stages of EITI accreditation: EITI candidate status and EITI-compliant status. There are 14 countries with compliant status, although one of those, Yemen, is currently suspended, and 21 countries with candidate status.

The EITI has a robust yet flexible methodology—the EITI standard—that ensures a global standard is maintained throughout the implementing countries. The EITI board and international secretariat are the guardians of that methodology. Implementation, however, is the responsibility of individual countries. The EITI standard, in a nutshell, is a globally developed standard that promotes revenue transparency at local level. The EITI rules establish the methodology that countries must follow to become fully compliant with the EITI.

As much as I am a big supporter of the EITI, however, I believe that more than a decade since its establishment—and a productive first decade it has been—the EITI needs to go further in its transparency work. As the report advocates in its recommendations, the time has come for the EITI to publish contracts between mining companies and Governments. The “Publish What You Pay” campaign suggests that such publication would help to expose any contracts that are patently disadvantageous to the country concerned. We only have to look at many countries in Africa to realise that they are mineral-rich, but money is not going back into those countries for Governments to invest for the benefit of their people, not just the higher echelons in society. It is important that such publication goes ahead.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

My hon. Friend is making a valuable contribution with her important speech, but does she acknowledge that, prior to the emergence of the EITI, we had situations, such as in Angola, where BP, to its credit, wanted to publish information on the taxes it paid and was basically told by the corrupt Minister who was pocketing those taxes that if BP did so, it would be thrown out of the country and not be allowed to continue its activities? The EITI has done an awful lot to prevent such things, thereby exposing those countries and Governments who will not sign up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I will speak just for the time it takes the Minister of State to assume his place.

I thank the Minister for her response. There are clearly differences between the Committee’s recommendations and the Government’s view. Even if the Government are not willing to accept our specific recommendations, may I say in a constructive spirit that I hope they will strenuously undertake to do everything they can to encourage greater transparency nationally and internationally, using whatever mechanisms they think will work? We would certainly expect them to pursue that issue, because the domestic and international agendas have coincided.

The Minister’s example of the work the Revenue has done shows how difficult transfer pricing is for a country such as the UK, but it is 10 times more difficult for small developing countries with virtually no capacity, which is why they need support. I am therefore grateful to her for saying that the scaling-up of this activity is being actively considered. We on the Committee always say that what we are really interested in is what works, and this activity works, so we need more of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We currently have an aid programme of around £270 million a year. After we complete our transition to technical assistance, we expect to spend approximately just under £30 million from 2015 onwards, to help the Indian Government to get the most out of the £50 billion a year they spend on things such as health and education.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I appreciate that the Secretary of State has negotiated the changed arrangement with the Indian Government and the state governments, but does she not acknowledge that India still has more poor people than sub-Saharan Africa? Is she prepared to consider not only technical assistance, but perhaps changing the relationship to soft loans, so that India can accelerate poverty reduction using the substantial pro-poor measures it is already adopting?

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that our relationship with India will go beyond technical assistance. It will include us helping with investments in small and medium-sized enterprises, particularly in rural and poorer areas of India, so that we not only help them to get the most out of India’s development spend, but drive economic development too.

UK Aid (Uganda and Rwanda)

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am disappointed by the tone that the hon. Gentleman has taken on this important matter, and by his attempt to politicise something that is of deep concern to hon. Members on both sides of the House. I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that, as you know, I make written ministerial statements whenever we believe them to be of a substance that is warranted in the House—[Interruption.] We did indeed make statements to the House, and I will endeavour to continue to do so. I am always happy to answer urgent questions on any issues, as you see fit, Mr Speaker.

On Rwanda, I should point out that, under my predecessor, the Government reduced the amount of general budget support from the levels we inherited. That support will continue to fall over the coming months. The shadow Secretary of State mentioned the President of Rwanda, but a Labour predecessor of mine called him a “sweetie”. Labour therefore has no ability to criticise the Government in relation to tracking the results of our aid or in relation to being clear on whether it is being spent appropriately. Whenever we have needed to take action to curb aid, we have done so.

The shadow Secretary of State may disagree with the reasons for partially putting through some further budget support earlier this year, but I have been clear with the International Development Committee, including last week, that I will take a look at all the evidence on the ground from all sources when I come to make my decision in December. I will not pre-empt that. When I met the Committee last week, the situation on the ground in eastern DRC was different from how it is today. He might want to pre-empt where we might be in December, which is when I will take my next decision, but it would not be correct for me to follow suit, as he wants me to do.

In relation to what conditions we will seek to see adhered to, we have been clear cut about both the partnership principles that we struck up with the Government of Rwanda and the PM’s conditions. I think they are absolutely right, and I will again look at them when I come to take my decision in December.

The hon. Gentleman asked what steps the Government had taken in relation to the Rwandan Government regarding the M23. The Foreign Secretary spoke with the Rwandan Foreign Minister at the weekend.

On Uganda, I have to say that we have taken action in a timely fashion in relation to suspending aid to Uganda. I presume the hon. Gentleman does not disagree with the decision I took. No, he clearly does not. I am delighted he supports the decision we have taken. If I can set out the chronology of what happened, in August we had initial reports of fraud and corruption in relation to the office of the Prime Minister—not in relation to our money, but other donor money. At that stage, we duly suspended our further funding to the office of the Prime Minister. After that, we initiated a forensic audit, and the initial results of that forensic audit have led me to suspend all aid, more broadly, to the Government of Uganda.

This has been a logical process that has taken account of all information, but has sought always to consider the fact that we still want to make sure that our development work in countries such as Uganda and Rwanda helps to alleviate the extreme poverty faced by the people on the ground on a day-to-day basis. These are often difficult decisions to have to take, but we take them based on the facts that we have at the time, and in discussion across Government. I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s questions, and I look forward to other questions from my colleagues.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I am sure that hon. Members in all parts of the House agree that what matters in this conflict is the needs of the people of Rwanda, Uganda and eastern Congo, and the need for them to receive the support and assistance that aid provides and also have some kind of trust in their own Governments. What steps will the Secretary of State take to consult all other donor agencies to try to ensure that we co-ordinate our response?

May I remind the House that this is not the first time that aid has been suspended to Uganda because of corruption? The previous Government had to do this, too. This is a disappointing development that suggests that the Ugandan Government have not learnt very much. I remind the House that the Select Committee on International Development is currently conducting an inquiry into the situation in Rwanda. We hope to have a report ready in time to help the Secretary of State with her decision.

[Justine Greening]

I appreciate the work the right hon. Gentleman’s Committee has done to help inform these important decisions. He is right that we discuss with other donors, both at official and ministerial level as appropriate, all views that are held about what is happening on the ground, and, critically, the implications for aid. As he rightly pointed out, we must always bear in mind that the point of development programmes is to help people on the ground. Surely, we have to bear that in mind before we simply turn off the tap. That is precisely what I intend to do.